Dunalley local says fire crews at pub watched house across street burn

Updated
November 27, 2013 09:03:00

No lives were lost in the Dunalley bushfire but 63 homes were destroyed in the small Tasmanian town along with key buildings like the primary school. The Tasmanian Bushfires Inquiry has concerns about how the fires were handled in Dunalley, and now stories are emerging of how most fire crews pulled back to the pub to save lives while the local volunteers and a family of concreters stayed in the township saving more than 40 homes in the town.

TONY EASTLEY: As the town's rebuild continues, questions are being asked about why the majority of fire-fighters were pulled back to the hotel during the height of the Dunalley bushfire in Tasmania. The pub was the main evacuation centre in the small southern Tasmanian town and more than 100 people sheltered there during the January fire.

But as Felicity Ogilvie reports, the local fire crew and a local family stayed behind in the town itself and managed to save more than 40 homes.

FELICITY OGILVIE: The bushfire destroyed 63 homes in Dunalley, along with key buildings like the primary school, the police station and Ike Kelly's sawmill.

The mill was already on fire when Ike Kelly fled to the pub along with more than 100 other locals. Almost all the fire crews were ordered back to the pub to protect lives, but Mr Kelly can't understand why they didn't also save nearby properties.

IKE KELLY: A house right opposite the car park at the hotel was on fire and I asked the people in one of the big fire trucks, I said, "Why don't you put it out?" And they said, "We're not here to put houses out; we're here to save lives."

And I said, "Well how the hell do you know there's no people in that house?" I said, "Your hoses will reach over there." And they just nodded at me. They didn't bother.

FELICITY OGILVIE: While most fire crews were following the order to defend lives at the pub, the local volunteer brigade stayed in town, risking their lives to save about 40 shops and houses.

Their chief, Brad Westcott, became trapped inside a house.

BRAD WESTCOTT: The fire just took off. You know, I looked up and there's blaze, there's flames rolling in the ceiling, there's horrible black smoke. It wasn't very good. It was like, well I can't find a door so I'll just go out the window. And so I just jumped out a window.

FELICITY OGILVIE: He went on to save other houses in that street with another volunteer fire-fighter from the Dunalley Brigade, Andrew Daly.

ANDREW DALY: I didn't feel like I was going to die but when we was going around to Boomer Bay we actually got a flash over where a fire ball come over the top of us, which boiled the water in the back of the truck and melted our suction hose too.

FELICITY OGILVIE: A family of local concreters also stayed in town fighting the blaze. Gerald Spaulding put water tanks on the back of his truck and used that to put out the fires.

GERALD SPAULDING: We sort of saved most of our street, or we hope to think that we saved most of our street. No houses burnt in our street.

FELICITY OGILVIE: Ike Kelly believes more properties could have been saved if the fire crews at the pub joined the local brigade and concreters.

IKE KELLY: They perhaps could have saved more houses than there was if they'd have had instructions to use them tankers. That's as simple as I can put it.

FELICITY OGILVIE: The chief officer of the Tasmania Fire Service, Mike Brown, has defended the action of his crews at the pub, saying saving lives is always their priority in catastrophic conditions.

MIKE BROWN: We needed to ensure that we had an absolute focus on protecting that building and the people that were in that building. Had we have had crews go back and respond in almost a candle moth syndrome to other buildings as they caught on fire, we would have lost control over that situation, certainly under the conditions we had.

FELICITY OGILVIE: The Tasmanian Bushfires Inquiry was concerned about how the fire was fought in the Dunalley township. It recommended if more information was needed about the fire-fighting that the Department of Justice should have an independent investigation.

The State Government's approved that recommendation in principle but hasn't ordered an investigation.